


The Beginning of The End

by Gizzwhizz



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Aranea is a badass, Ardyn Being Ardyn, Background Character Death, Biggs and Wedge - Freeform, Brief Violence, Decisions, Gen, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-12 00:27:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19554385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gizzwhizz/pseuds/Gizzwhizz
Summary: Twice Aranea made a choice.Twice, everything changed.My story for the "FFXV Celebration Zine."





	The Beginning of The End

**Author's Note:**

> At long last I can share this wonderful piece with all of you. This is a story I wrote way back in January for the "FFXV Celebration Zine" that xtine lovingly put together! Now that the preorders have shipped, I can finally share it with you all. This is my take on Aranea's cancelled DLC, way before "Dawn of the Future" was even announced, and even now I still like it a lot. I hope you enjoy it as well!
> 
> Walk Tall!

Aranea Highwind withdrew her spear and watched the Tenebraen soldier’s body crumple at her feet. Too easy. She straightened to look around the battlefield and sighed. Her contingent was small, just Biggs and Wedge and a handful of others, and yet the fight was already over.

It was always like this. It was always too easy. She hadn’t even broken a sweat.

This time they were fighting on the side of the _Great_ Niflheim Empire, though they’d aided either side half a dozen times now as Tenebrae fought to maintain its independence. As a mercenary, Aranea kept her head out of the politics and simply lent her spear to whichever side offered more gil. But even she could see that the little isolated kingdom wasn’t going to be able to stand against the Empire for much longer.

The only faction in the war that never seemed to show any interest in her talents was the King of Lucis himself. From what she had heard, however, he wasn’t immune to stooping to using mercenaries. But his were of a different sort, indentured servants in all but name fighting for Lucis in exchange for the privilege of living behind the King’s magical Wall.

She wasn’t sure she liked that deal any better than the Empire’s daemons and odious experiments. She certainly didn’t like the amount of freedom it would strip from her. Besides, as far as she was concerned there was hardly ever a “right” side in a war, and she’d seen more than enough to be sure of that fact.

Ice crawled up her spine and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. It was a feeling she’d had before. Maybe that was why, when she twisted on her heel with her spear raised, she wasn’t surprised to find the Chancellor standing behind her.

“Lady Highwind,” Ardyn Izunia greeted, doffing his hat and throwing out his other arm as he offered her a sweeping bow. She only frowned and lowered her weapon.

“I’ve told you before, I’m not royalty or anything,” she huffed, glancing away. “Just Aranea is fine.”

“Lady A!” Biggs called from across the battlefield as he and Wedge jogged towards them. Aranea gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to wince.

“Your subordinates would beg to differ, it seems,” Ardyn said smugly as he straightened, fixing her with that toothy grin of his that made her skin crawl.

“What do you want, Izunia?” she asked, planting her spear in the ground and crossing her arms across her chest. She prided herself on remaining aloof, so her inability to hide how uncomfortable she felt around the Chancellor was always frustrating.

Biggs and Wedge stopped some distance away, far enough to give them privacy but close enough to come to her aid should she need them. She could never decide if their puppy dog attitudes were endearing or annoying. Possibly both.

“We’ve already been paid for this job, or does the Empire need its ass saved again already?”

“I’ve come with a proposition for you,” Ardyn said, “for a more permanent arrangement.” Aranea was already opening her mouth, but Ardyn interrupted her. “Before you answer, consider the circumstances, at least,” he said quickly. “We’ve been watching you for quite some time, Aranea Highwind, from both sides of the fight.” There was an odd twinkle to the Chancellor’s eyes and he winked as he mentioned her mercurial nature when it came to picking sides. Aranea narrowed her eyes at him further.

“You complete nearly every assignment in record time, no matter who your opponent may be,” Ardyn continued, turning in a circle on the spot to survey the carnage around them as he spoke. “It’s really quite impressive. But I have to wonder…don’t you get bored?”

Despite herself, she felt her eyes widen. Her back straightened and her shoulders dropped. She couldn’t seem to control any of it, and she hated that. Hated that she had shown him that he was right. But she was 18 and impulsive and he was right. She _was_ bored.

“Okay,” she said at last when it became clear he wasn’t going to continue until she reacted one way or the other. “So what’s this deal you’re offering?” The Cheshire smile returned. No one should be able to smile that widely, she thought. It was just creepy.

“You’ve proven yourself on the ground,” he said simply. “If it’s a challenge you’re after—and I think you are—then you need to turn your attention…up.” He finished his pitch by pointing to the sky and Aranea lifted her chin as though her head were being pulled by a string. Her gaze slid up to the clouds until she spotted it, a crimson magitek engine hovering on the horizon.

While her eyes were on the ship, there was a burst of red sparks in front of her and the faint smell of sulfur drifted on the air. Biggs and Wedge both gave a cry from their position and she dropped her gaze back to Ardyn, taking a step back on instinct.

The Chancellor was holding a spear, though she knew his hands had been empty only a moment ago. It was long and black with a wicked looking tip. He tossed it from hand to hand almost absently, seemingly testing the weight of it.

“A gift for you, my lady,” he said, looking at her over the weapons’ shining surface. Without warning he tossed it to her and she caught it automatically. It felt like it was made to fit in her hands, though it had a strange balance to it. In fact, she couldn’t seem to find the balance point at all. Every time she tried, turning the spear this way and that, it seemed to shift up and down the handle. She raised her eyes to Ardyn again and found that the Chancellor had been waiting patiently for her attention before he continued. The back of her neck tingled again.

“I’m told they’re calling it the ‘Stoss Spear,’ but feel free to rename it if you’re into that sort of thing,” Ardyn said with an almost careless shrug. “I’m not entirely clear on the details, but from what I understand it has a magitek gyroscope, or some such technology, that aids in aerial attacks. In short, Lady Highwind, with this… _you can fly_.”

Aranea just stared at him. She held the Stoss Spear in her hands and let her gaze flick up to the magitek engine hovering above them, almost beckoning to her. She’d never believed in fate, or anything so silly, but there were moments that helped define a person’s life. She was gradually beginning to think she’d stumbled onto one of those very moments.

“You still haven’t said what, exactly, the job is,” Aranea said at last, fixing her gaze on Ardyn once more. He gave her a disappointed frown, as if she’d just ruined a marvelous surprise.

“Really, I thought you could put it together yourself,” he pouted.

“Spell it out for me,” she returned.

“Oh, very well. We are prepared to offer you a promotion of sorts. That weapon in your hands, a ship, and a promotion. Commodore. Of the…er…86th Airborne Division, I believe. Something in the 80s, anyway. It’s not really my job to keep track of the numbers, you see.”

“And in return?” Aranea said, raising her chin imperiously even as her heart began to beat far too quickly. Ardyn shrugged.

“As I said, you’ll be a Commodore of the Niflheim army. No more switching sides whenever you feel like it. We’ll have…exclusive rights, as it were.”

Aranea stared at him hard, looking for the lie. Looking for the trick. There didn’t seem to be one, other than the obvious. This would realize one of her biggest fears: the loss of her freedom.

But then again, hadn’t she just been thinking only minutes ago how fruitless it was becoming to oppose the Empire these days? Most of her work was coming from them as it was. She shot a glance at Biggs and Wedge, still waiting for her signal at a discrete distance, and held her new Stoss Spear firmly in her hands.

“I have some conditions of my own,” Aranea declared, squaring her shoulders and planting her feet. “I pick my people. And all of them will _be_ people. None of your weird experiments, understand? And my unit won’t be doing any daemon hunting for the Empire, either. You want me because I can fight, so let me fight.” She stood rigid, waiting for the argument, but none came. Instead, Ardyn only grinned at her.

“You drive a hard bargain, Lady Highwind,” Ardyn said, despite offering no objections of his own, “but I’m sure I can make the Emperor see reason.”

“It’s Aranea,” she said again. “Or Commodore.” She couldn’t help the smirk that crept onto her face.

“A pleasure doing business with you, Commodore.”

~12 years Later~

Aranea stomped the snow from her boots on the ramp to her crimson magitek engine, but paused before entering the craft properly. With one gloved hand she reached up and tore the Niflheim flag from where it hung off the side of her ship, tossing it into the wind before turning to do the same to the flag on the other side. She saw Biggs and Wedge exchange a glance but her mind wasn’t on them. It was on the lives lost in a city on the sea and the hundreds more in a senseless attack on a civilian train. It was on the sickening experiments and the reports of worse that she’d witnessed in the wake of a mad scientist.

She’d known since she was young that there were no “right” sides in a war. But for the first time she felt assured that there was a wrong side.

“Lady A?” Biggs finally ventured to ask, always the more talkative of her two most loyal followers.

“We don’t work for the Empire anymore, boys,” she said cheerfully, slapping the button to close the bay door and silencing the whistling wind. “I think it’s time we went into business for ourselves again, don’t you?”

Biggs and Wedge exchanged another glance.

“What about the crew?” Biggs wondered. Aranea shrugged as she led the way down the hall towards her quarters, stripping off her artic coat in the ship’s warmth.

“Everyone here is free to do as they like,” she said simply. “If they want to stay with the Niffs, that’s fine with me. We’ll find a base or somewhere to drop them off.”

“What about the ship?” Wedge asked as they reached her cabin door. “I only mean…won’t the Empire want it back?”

Aranea paused to look at her old friends and smirked.

“They’re welcome to try.”


End file.
